The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1887-04-08

with husks in some place where the
grain can be saturated with coal
smoke. The odor, he says, repels
squirrels and worms from eating the
seed. The seed comes up quicker, the
plants grow more vigorously, and ripen
several days earlier than from seed not
so treated.
Prof. Budd says that large per-
centage of Western tree-planters need
not be told that we have no other tree
equally rapid in growth which has
proven as durable for posts, vine stakes,
and hop-poles as the locust. Yet very
few seem aware of the fact that grown
intermingled with trees with heavier
foliage it is not attacked by the borer
to any serious extent.
Too long feeding is common mis-
take in fattening fowls for market. It
takes off the profits when shorter
time will answer. If kept in a dark
place and stuffed with all they can eat
they will fatten in twelve days or two
weeks, and if this be continued much
longer they will begin to get poor
again. Those to be kept over should
not be subjected to this fattening, or
rather stuifing process.
A correspondent gives very simple
and easily tried means of driving rats
from the premises, and which he says
is very effective. Take copperas, the
quantity to depend upon the number Of
buildings or places infested; pulverize
it very fine and sprinkle it in all the
buildings-in fact, in every place
where they have been in the habit of
frequenting. In few days, according
to the writer, all the rats will be gone.
The Presidents Coachman.
I noticed funny incident on Penn
sylvania avenue the other day. Albert
Hawkins, the Presidents coachman, il
large, fine-looking negro, as black as
a piece of polished anthracite coal, and
in private life is rollicking, jolly,
good fellow, full of stories and wit, and
he keeps the stables in a roar, so that
is is said the horses laugh sometimes.
But when he is out on business Albert
is as solemn as Hindoo god. He sits
on the box of the Presidents carriage
without moving a muscle of his face
for hours, and when the carriage Is
waiting anywhere he always shows the
other drivers around what true dignity
is. He has driven seven Presidents
and no one appreciates the circum-
stance so well as he. In twenty-five
years of driving and of handling all
sorts of teams no accident ever occur
red with him and not a strap ever
broke. He has driven Lincoln, John
son, Grant, Hayes, Garfield and Arthur
to take the oath of Office, and has fol-
lowed the bodies of Lincoln and Gar
field to their tombs.
Albert is particularly proud of Mrs.
Cleveland, and feels a sort of proprie-
torship in the Presidents wife, He
used to be quite fond of Mrs. Fred
Grant, and Nellie Arthur he still thinks
is "the finest young lady in the world,
sab; the finest young lady in the
world. But Mrs. Cleveland seems to
occupy his mind more nowadays than
the friends of the past, and Albert
spends good deal of time when off
duty extolling her beauty and graces.
Whenever she smiles at him, as she al
ways does when he takes her from or
leaves her at the White House, his own
face spreads all over his coatcollar and
stays that way for some time. When
Mrs. Cleveland rides out Albert is al
ways little sprucer than usual, his
spinal column is little more erect and
his face little more serious with re-
sponsibility. Washington Letter.